


an american christmas

by blueincandescence



Series: all's fair in love and cold war [12]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, under cover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 22:52:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17130212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueincandescence/pseuds/blueincandescence
Summary: It's Christmas time and Waverly sends Gaby and Illya undercover in the suburbs of America. What starts as a lark gets a whole lot more complicated when Solo calls with an unexpected revelation.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oceans_and_lovers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceans_and_lovers/gifts).



> This little Christmasy character exploration is for oceans_and_lovers. I pulled little bits from all three of your prompts: mostly Illya and Gaby with a dash of Napoleon, a Christmas story, a mission, hurt/comfort, someone using their native language, high school (you suggested an AU, which this isn't, but it got me thinking!), and dancing. You also requested my prefered genre: "Fluff and angst, please, with a happy ending." I hope this works for you! Happy holidays!

 DECEMBER 1966

Playing the suburban housewife is a laugh, Gaby tells Napoleon in so many words. Cradling the receiver between her shoulder and her ear, she says, “Oh, no, no, no. We aren’t in the market for the Encyclopedia Britannica. We’re much too occupied.”

Napoleon isn’t supposed to be checking in, hadn’t even been included in the mission brief. But Gaby is tickled powder pink to talk to Napoleon on her very own blood orange telephone. It matches the cream and orange splash back tiles behind her very own state-of-the-art stainless steel oven.

“Everything is exactly like in the magazine.” Gaby sinks into the broad notes of the grateful immigrant. Grateful for rescue, more grateful still for the bounties of capitalism. There is a television in the kitchen, a bigger one in the living room. Wardrobe at UNCLE HQ had picked out her dress, Illya having to concede that the Jackie Kennedy effect is indelible so far from either American coast.

“Say,” Napoleon says, a twang in his own voice. The phone is as CIA-bugged now as it had been when the movers had settled them in three days ago, and talking in so obvious a code is safer, more fun. “Is that a German accent I detect?” The first syllable of that last word gets the emphasis. Napoleon never could help swinging camp into his twang.

Gaby has a similar problem with her housewife cover. At the welcome party yesterday evening, she had to stop herself from rounding her eyes, replying, ‘Golly gee’ to everything.

Their first night, she and Illya had found a double bed set. Illya was horrified at the Puritanical expense. Gaby wailed, ‘Oh, Ricky!’ and flopped down onto one to cackle as Illya put his falsified engineering credentials to work fitting the beds together.

To Solo’s question, Gaby answers, “My husband and I are proud American Citizens, sir.” Illya and Gaby Alexey are the dream children of Alexander Waverly, who would get them killed one of these days, testing the patience of the CIA and KGB as he likes to do.

Until then—or until they meet with a handy accident courtesy of the unknown THRUSH moles infiltrating Illya’s DARPA project and this tidy little suburb—Gaby means to find the humor in her situation. There isn’t much else to do in Clearwater, Colorado, where the water from the testing site is murky at best.

“Pardon, ma’am, no offense meant.”

Twining the long cord around her wrist, Gaby wanders toward her living room, which is as large as any apartment she has lived in. The American Dream. Waverly hadn’t furnished the home with two children, one boy and one girl, but Gaby supposes that was a moral compunction.

“I only mention it because Clearwater is my territory, see. I once delivered a set of beautiful—” Napoleon gives the word four syllables—“Encyclopedia Britannica to a German scientist thereabouts. Moved house, if I recall. Had the cutest little doggy.”

The rush of blood is no less convulsive than it had been in East Berlin. The chase of new anger and old hurt is no less acidic in the back of Gaby’s throat.

“I reckon you might hear about him round town.”

Gaby closes her eyes tight against the thread of sympathy.

Napoleon is taking an enormous risk, having been pronounced an ‘inconsistent’ agent at their last debriefing for daring to push back against his CIA handlers at so precarious a time. Napoleon had looked Waverly dead in the eye and replied, ‘Certain promises were made in exchange for my loyalty, and it's nearing time to collect.’ UNCLE has prevailed, yet there have been no celebrations, no commendations. THRUSH is mortally wounded, if not defeated, and Waverly is the lone voice left insisting that makes them more dangerous than ever.

“I’ll call back round Christmas, see if y’all haven’t reconsidered those encyclopedias.”

Gaby looks out the kitchen window, where it is already turning dark. Last week, she had watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade from her office, glancing back across the hall at Waverly’s closed door.

“Thank you for thinking of me,” Gaby says and hangs up the phone.

She sits at her kitchen table, hands pressed flat against vinyl decorated with cheerful orange and lime slices, and thinks. She thinks about all the secrets Waverly has kept to ensure her natural reactions. All times he has made Gaby bait.

Why this time it should be so much harder to rationalize, to forgive.

At six o'clock, the grandfather clock chimes in the entranceway and the front door opens. Gaby doesn’t look up until Illya appears in the kitchen, his long arms thrown wide.

“Honey, he says like Ward Cleaver by way of Boris Badenov. “I am home.” The left side of Illya’s mouth twitches. He probably practiced his delivery on the car ride home, debating the whole way whether the gag was worth looking ridiculous.

Gaby tells herself Illya doesn’t know. Part of her believes he must. The rest resents him for never finding out for her. But, of course, she’d never asked. Gave every indication the entire subject was closed, redacted, verboten. Dwelling on it would change nothing.

Illya’s drops his arms, his briefcase hanging limply. He slides off his hat, tries, “How was your day, honey?”

That new anger, old hurt twists up Gaby's face. She spreads a hand to indicate their immaculate kitchen. “For a start, there’s no alcohol in this godforsaken hellhole.” She gives Illya a smile every bit as bland as the ones he can muster. “But, golly gee, never mind me. How was your day, honey?”

It’s a laugh playing the suburban housewife. A scream.


	2. Chapter 2

Illya is under no illusion that THRUSH moles in deep cover for two decades and so recently untethered from their command can be flushed out in a matter of weeks. So he keeps his head down at work, scopes out the neighborhood, and sets his mind to the problem of his de facto wife.

The trouble with trying to understand the capricious moods of Gaby Teller, Illya has learned over the years, is that she’ll spit a dozen reasons in his face, all of them true, none of them touching the molten core of her anger. As the days have grown shorter and the nights longer, Illya has weathered rants about suburban boredom, hypocrisy, and the utter uselessness of a main street in a town where no one picks up their feet and walks. Illya doesn’t disagree with these loud observations, nor does he engage. There is nothing Gaby’s anger wants more than a willing partner, and someone has to keep this mission afloat.

Illya leaves in the morning with a headache from grinding his teeth against a screed about American breakfast foods. New York City breakfasts, according to Gaby, did not count since it is an ‘immigrant city.’ Driving by the identical houses with their identical yards, Illya has to concede her logic. Half the population of Clearwater are foreigners recruited to the project, but the assimilation machine has ground them through at lightning speed. To maintain his cover, Illya has purchased a grill and a riding lawnmower and a pair of blue jeans for yard work. Those, at least, got Gaby out of her mood long enough for her to wrestle him out of them.

He can tell Gaby isn’t angry with him, that much Illya is grateful for. To an extent. It renders him powerless, neither cause nor solution.

At his desk, he goes over the redacted designs of what might either be the engine of a stealth fighter with a nuclear payload or a nuclear-powered toaster. Really, Illya turns over Gaby’s words, looking for clues. In the old days, Illya would assume Gaby’s anger had to do with her perennial need to prove herself a top agent. She is too experienced, too confident to doubt herself now. No, Illya thinks it must have something to do with UNCLE. With the defeat of THRUSH, its position is tenuous once more. Flushing out inactive operatives isn’t as high-stakes as the imminent threat of a New World Order. They’ve all felt the strain of that, none more than Waverly. And, though she would never admit it, Gaby has long taken her emotional cues from her handler. Illya doubts Gaby thinks of Waverly along those lines, certainly not now and perhaps not ever.

Using his lunch break to stretch his legs, Illya paces the long corridor leading to the engineering department. Lining the walls are photographs stretching back twenty years, since before DARPA had a name. Illya has made it his business to memorize the faces in these photographs out of the corner of his eye, which takes quite a bit of overtly causal pacing. He is usually meticulous, working on one photograph at a time. But today his focus is elsewhere and his eyes dart from photograph to photograph.

A face jumps out at Illya. Stubborn chin, set jaw. Udo Teller is bald beneath his hat and as slight in stature as the daughter he abandoned in Soviet-occupied Germany.

Illya must look as wrecked as he feels, because his supervisor sends him home sick with no protest. He shoves into his Cadillac and edges the speed limit through town. Illya is careful to wave at the police chief when he pulls up to eye him at a stop sign. Gaby isn’t wrong about the xenophobia in Clearwater. Illya Alexey may have been recruited, but he’s still a Russian.

Turning the wheel carefully, Illya navigates the neighborhood he and Gaby have settled in with a heightened paranoia. The CIA is always watching, the KGB always shadowing. Red-blooded Americans love nothing better than to report on a Commie. The labyrinthine rules of suburbia continue to test their covers. But now—now—Illya has a new fear. That the moles will recognize Gaby. That the moles were meant to recognize Gaby.

That Gaby, in Waverly’s machinations, has not suffered enough for her family ties.

Illya’s hands are shaking by the time he reaches his driveway. His mind is buzzing with recourses, the consequence of each more dangerous than the last.

“Gaby,” he calls, locking the front door behind him.

The pitter-patter of socked feet stop him short. Two blond-haired children skid past him, chorusing, “Hello, Mr. Alexey.”

In the kitchen, Gaby sits with their mother, a tall German woman married to a physicist. They share a cigarette. Bottles of vermouth, vodka, and olives lay between them.

Gaby lifts her martini glass to Illya. “Look, honey, we’ve gone native.” Over her drink, Gaby eyes him warily. “Is anything the matter?”

“Home sick,” is all Illya explains. But Gaby knows.

Mrs. Segelkin excuses herself, calling her children into the kitchen. She doesn't look him in the eye, but then Illya supposes she must have been a teenage beauty when the Russians took Berlin. 

The girl child stomps in, hands on her hips. “I can’t find a Christmas tree anywhere.”

“We’re not celebrating Christmas in this house,” Gaby tells the girl, almost gleeful.

Illya returns his coat and hat to the hallway, listening with care and alarm.

The older boy says with the voice of authority, “You can’t not celebrate Christmas. It’s downright un-American.”

“ _This country ruins children_ ,” Gaby says.

Mrs. Segelkin grounds down her cigarette. “ _Our ruined country has no children_.” Her boy and girl don't seem to understand German.

When the Segelkins are gone, Gaby lights another cigarette. “My father lived on the west side of the neighborhood. This isn’t his house.”

Illya opens and closes his fist, a movement Gaby never misses. “Waverly had no right.” If she wants a partner for her anger, Illya will be that for her.

But Gaby lifts a delicate shoulder. “You lie down. I’ll make a trip to the pharmacy. We’re watched so carefully.”

“I don’t know what happens if we leave.” But they will, if Gaby wants. Leaving, disappearing, cutting ties. Napoleon knows this is their exit strategy, that the inconceivable is becoming inevitable. Illya wants to hold off as long as possible because of the danger. Gaby worries over the betrayal.

Perhaps at last Gaby will realize a man in Waverly’s position, with Waverly’s ambition, can afford no such worry.

Gaby scoffs. “It’s only a town.”

Illya has nothing to say to that. He stands as still as a clenched fist as Gaby walks toward the door.

She pauses, brushes his wrist with her fingertips. “I’m acting like a beast.” A fair warning. Sometimes, a temper is not a thing to be controlled. Only borne.


	3. Chapter 3

It is some comfort, having Illya on her side. And comfort, as this suburb proves, breeds weakness. Gaby raised herself on spite and an empty stomach. She doesn’t know how to be strong any other way.

She picks fights will Illya. He tells Gaby he understands. So she picks a fight with the whole neighborhood. No Christmas at the Alexey house. Downright un-American.

It’s a pleasure rejecting fruitcakes brought over by flat-toned women in pearls. It’s invigorating to pen her regrets to pre-Christmas festivities. She throws a pan in Illya's general vicinity when he broaches the topic of Christmas gifts. The Segelkin children take to calling her the Grinch when she is almost out of earshot, and the other children hum the tune when she passes. At the grocery store, a clerk says he noticed her house was looking awfully dark and has the audacity to place outdoor lights in her basket. She throws them at his feet.

That little incident gets back to Illya, who takes over the shopping.

Careful, coaxing, Illya tries to explain how unreasonable Gaby is being, as if that isn’t the entire point. She is the one who decided the mission came first. She loves Christmas, or had loved it when they lived in London, New York, West Berlin. Gaby blows smoke through Illya's logic. She goes through a pack of cigarettes a day. Alcohol is more tempting, more familiar. But Gaby is on the edge of something desperate.

Illya must sense it. He makes love to her like she could shatter. If he knew what she is thinking when he touches her like that, he would think she already has.

Increasingly, Gaby is playing the wrong part. Not Gaby Alexey. Not Gaby von Trulsch, nor Gaby Schmidt. She is a Gaby Teller of a different stripe. One who was remembered, saved, cherished. In the mirror, she smoothes her face, her accent, and tells her reflection, “I’ve lived in Clearwater practically all my life.”

She gets a tour of the local high school, telling the secretary she and her husband are thinking of children. Gaby has the math ready in her head and stands in front of a glass case dedicated to the class of ’56. Left alone, she reaches past trophies and pennants for a yearbook. They had a dance team, an auto club.

At dinner, Gaby puts down her fork to pick up her knife and smiles at Illya across the table. Gaby Teller, class of ’56, might have married Illya Alexey. She might have no idea her husband was a KGB spy, her father a CIA asset. She might have been content in her ignorance. She might have fit right in.

Gaby lets Illya make love to her, his feather-light touches making it easier to pretend he is a polite stranger with secret motives. It excites her and leaves her hollow.

Illya grumbles when she smokes in bed, so she takes it to the backyard. She stands in darkness, in the shadow of houses lit up in Yuletide cheer, and thinks about the many comfortable Christmases she might have had.

A week before the twenty-fifth, Napoleon calls again. “We deliver on holidays,” he entices. Then says, “Come on now, my manager wants these offloaded.”

Gaby stiffens, her fingers clenching around the receiver. “Your manager sounds like a bastard.”

Napoleon laughs—his laugh. Back in character, he says, “Oh, I doubt he’d disagree. The spirit of the season has got to him, if you can believe it. He’s authorized me to offer you quite a deal.”

Gaby tries to swallow back the gratitude filling her belly at that barest hint of apology. Nothing more pathetic than a fatherless girl desperate for a stand-in. “Your manager should know I’m not the easy sell he’s used to,” Gaby tells Napoleon and hangs up.


	4. Chapter 4

At five-thirty on the dot, Illya gets into his Cadillac. He passes armed guards, leaving behind nuclear secrets worth more than the lives of the three thousand residents of Clearwater combined. On the passenger seat is his briefcase. Inside are a coded letter from ‘Uncle Oleg’ and an invitation to a company Christmas party. He had found them under a pile of utility bills and advertisements as he was leaving for work that morning. Both were opened, read, and discarded. Hard to say which of the two has the potential for a deadlier fallout.

As the uniform houses of his neighborhood come into focus, a knot forms in the pit of Illya’s stomach. Dogs bark as he passes, their dark outlines passing in front of twinkling bright evergreens. His neighbors stare. Illya keeps his hand raised like the Pledge of Allegiance.

Illya was trained for a posting like this. The KGB sent him to Cambridge all those years ago to build knowledge, credibility in the West. They made him live in New York after that to test his tolerance for the American lifestyle. Illya had passed those tests. Illya Kuryakin is good at tests.

His driveway is dark when he pulls in. The lights are on inside, but they are sparse. No evergreen tree, no decorations. No fat man in a white beard grinning at him everywhere he looks. Had the KGB sent Illya to an American suburb like this with one of theirs, as had once been the plan, a Katya-call-me-Katie would be standing under a gaudy display wearing an apron and pearls, waving and welcoming Illya into their perfectly uniform home. Katya-Katie would know exactly when to fumble her immigrant roots, when to blend seamlessly to put the neighbors at ease. She would draw no criticism, no suspicion. She would not tempt fate, let emotions worm their way into the mission.

‘Uncle Oleg’ has many reasons to disapprove of Gaby Teller.

The KGB is watching Illya, along with the CIA, but this is an UNCLE mission. So Illya’s house is not decorated. Illya’s wife is not in an apron on the front porch. He can see her through sheer curtains, spinning and sloshing. Gaby has no eight hours of relief from the knot. She lives with hers all the time.

Illya pulls out the invitation to the Christmas party and steels himself for a fight his heart isn’t in. Fear is an unpredictable motivator. Threating Gaby has been a risky move since the beginning, and Oleg knows it. And still he wrote, in so many words, ‘Bring your woman to heel or I bring her to mine.’

The wafting scent of cooking and radio carols greet him in the entranceway. Even their holiday songs are laden with Cold War paranoia.  _He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness' sake..._

Illya edges around to the living room. He glances first into the kitchen, where a gelatinous fruitcake cools on the stove. They are meant to join the Pearsons for dessert that evening, but Illya had already conceded that fight.

Hat in hand, he makes himself seen. He is shocked to find ornaments and tinsel strewn on the floor next to a tree—lopsided but standing. Gaby watches him, expression unreadable enough to keep the edge on. But she raises a square of fake snow and waves it like a flag.

The knot eases. Illya has known for years that Gaby’s love for him is greater than her pride, but he is forever humbled.

Illya sets down his briefcase and approaches with hopeful caution as Gaby downs her drink. He sets it aside, cups her cheek.

“There will be no firing squad on Main Street," Gaby concedes. "Oleg and the rest of our voyeurs will have their perfect American Christmas." Resentful, she removes Illya's pocket protector and tosses it away. She tugs Illya down as she undoes his tie.

He kisses her, gentle with gratitude. It isn’t fair that she has to give up her revenge, misplaced as it is, for his peace of mind. But she hasn’t made him demand it from her. "Does this mean I can buy you present?"

Gaby leans back with a scowl, her lower lip pressed between her teeth. She uses both ends of Illya’s tie to drag his mouth to hers, biting and pressing. “All I want for Christmas is you to stop fucking me like a pencil-pusher."

Illya bites back, tugging down the zip of her dress and scraping his fingers up the musculature of her back. Acting like she fought him tooth and nail is the least he can do.

Gaby shudders and pounces on him, and Illya crushes her in his arms. He grinds two ornaments to dust in his haste to take Gaby upstairs and shake her loose.


	5. Chapter 5

The party is on Christmas Eve. Gaby wears a velvet dress that belongs to a decade prior, fitted at the waist and puffed around her knees. It is emerald green, a playful nod to her short tenure as the Clearwater Grinch. She takes the gentle ribbing with good grace. These covers are for an unknown but significant duration. Might as well make friends—easier to spot enemies among them that way.

Illya is a six-foot-five vision in a red formal suit. A walking Communist flag in the middle of red-and-green all-American Christmas cheer. Gaby would never have guessed she would come to love the KGB’s best agent for his sense of humor.

They drink champagne and make the rounds. This kind of spycraft they can do in their sleep—the subtle gestures to mark suspects to each other, the gentle leading of conversations toward revealing mistakes. They hold hands across the table to give signals. They will take any secrets they can find.

The ballroom is a splendid affair of vaulted ceilings and golden lights reflected on crystal. A bribe, a gilded cage. The scientists assembled in this room have the brainpower to change the fates of nations.

They waltz to Frank Sinatra, snow falling outisde the windows.

It is technically Christmas Day before they make it to the place they’re calling home.

Gaby doesn’t lift her head from Illya’s shoulder even as he turns off the car. “Wanna neck out here a little?” she murmurs in her best American standard. “My daddy isn’t home.”

Sighing a little, Illya kisses the top of her head before coming around to her side of the Cadillac. She lets herself be unbuckled, hauled to up. A bundle of taffeta and raw feelings. Inside is lit in the same gold and green and red. It’s welcoming, cozy. Weakness pricks behind her eyelids. Illya holds her tight.

Lighting the fireplace proves difficult with Gaby’s arms wound around his neck, her lips pecking along his jaw. Somehow, Illya manages. He takes her full under the mistletoe and kisses her until the only Christmases she is thinking of are the ones they’ve spent together.

He lays her down in front of the fire and warms her there. Unwrapping him, Gaby muses that, by now, this must count as a Christmas tradition. Illya’s agreement is enthusiastic.

When they are sated, settled, they fall asleep jammed on the living room couch, every inch of them melting together like candle wax.

The doorbell rings well after sunrise, and it’s a scramble to find robes and get into character. Gaby is fastest, making it to the door alone. What she finds isn’t carolers or charity collectors. Instead, she sees a stack of Encyclopedia Britannica and a head bent over a clipboard.

Gaby sucks in a shuddering breath as Waverly lifts his chin. “Delivery." His twang is something awful. “Special delivery,” he adds. His blue eyes are gray in the white morning light. There are dark circles under them. He could use a paracetamol, a glass of water, and a pep talk from his Girl Friday.

She wanted to forgive her father in Italy, too. Instead, she set her jaw and slapped his face. Told herself she was there for the mission, the promised freedom. Nothing else.

Waverly hesitates. He holds out the clipboard, which Gaby accepts, mute. She doesn’t need to turn to know Illya has stopped in the entranceway, giving her space but letting her know he isn’t far.

“I’m sorry these weren’t delivered sooner,” Waverly says. His voice is low, more like his own. “Paperwork is complicated in my line of business. There were—well, competing priorities. One never knows quite when to push."

More than once, Napoleon has insinuated that Waverly’s relationship with the CIA is just as tenuous as his KGB one and even less straightforward for all that the UK and the US are allies.

“But it occurred to me that there might have been an error. I didn’t know for certain, but I had to find out. It took quite a bit of doing.” Waverly pats the stack of encyclopedias, his usual charm awkward, unsure. “These are the corrected editions. Volumes three through six, in particular. Some in my business would call it a trifling bit of information, but history is made up of nuances that change nothing and everything all at once. And I hope it goes without saying—well.”

Waverly’s face is as earnest as it was the day he told Gaby he could get her across the Wall, though she might come to regret how or why. In his office the day of the briefing, he looked at her when said this mission would not be the lark it sounded like. Waverly withheld, but he never lied. Not to Gaby.

“Well, that this particular nuance is of the utmost importance to me because of who it pertains to.” He looks down. Then up at Gaby. “And so I pushed.”

Gaby returns the clipboard. “Thank you,” is all she says. But she squeezes his fingers when their hands meet. She wants to forgive. She will not miss the opportunity a second time.

Waverly nods, backing down the steps. Illya comes out behind her to wheel the Encyclopedia Britannica into the living room beside the tree. Gaby watches Waverly back the truck onto the road before facing the stack of encyclopedias.  

“Volume three,” she tells Illya, who pulls it out for her. She knows by the weight the volume is hollowed out. Paperwork, Waverly said. Gaby opens the cover with her breath held.

In the end, Illya has to explain and categorize the mounds of typed letters for Gaby. Tears are blurring her vision before she has read more than a line. Sixteen years’ worth of petitions to the CIA from Udo Teller to bring his daughter to the United States. Sixteen years’ worth of denials, of veiled threats. She was a bargaining chip even then.

And bargaining chips only work if they’re wanted.

Gaby cries like she is seven again, alone in an orphanage on Christmas Day.

She cries like she couldn’t let herself when she found and lost her father in the same breath.

She cries until she can wrap her head around all the masters that she, her father, Illya, Napoleon, Waverly are beholden to. This new information is exactly how Waverly described it—a nuance that changes nothing and everything.

In Illya’s arms, Gaby lets herself be held gently. To be calmed and soothed and comforted. Not because she is going to break. Because she deserves gentle treatment.

When she is ready, she wipes her face and looks up at Illya. “If it’s not too late, I know what I want for Christmas now.” To her own ears, she sounds wrung out, exhausted. But hopeful.

“Anything, ptichka.”

“UNCLE and the CIA and the KGB have all pinned some machination or other on us staying here for a while." And Oleg demanded a sign that Gaby is taking this mission seriously. And Waverly hopes her Teller looks will confound the moles. And the CIA deserves to be flouted. So many masters, so little freedom. But Udo Teller wrote his letters all the same. 

“Da.” Illya is so solemn, so apologetic, so sweet she has to kiss him once, twice, three times.

“Then I want my present to be a little Weiner dog.” Gaby smiles, and—despite the imminent danger, the utter unfairness—feels something like content. “And we’ll name him Schnitzel.”


End file.
